News & Press

Goat scaping

Have you recently noticed a strange group of goats in your neighbor’s yard or a nearby park and wondered what on earth they’re doing? Well, your neighbors are engaging in something called goatscaping!

“Goatscaping” is the use of goats instead of other traditional methods, like machinery or chemicals, to clear unwanted weeds and vines. This is achieved by acknowledging goats’ natural tendency to munch on anything and everything green around them and setting them free on an area to get to it. The goats help by going in and reducing vegetation in places where it’s difficult to get to, making it easy for people to go in after them and clear the rest of the plant matter. The goats can clear many difficult to tackle plants, like briars, kudzu, ivy, and other vines. They even leave behind their own fertilizer for your next planting endeavors. They can be used to fight unwanted plant life in your home, your local park, and forests; they’re even used to fight wildfires by cleaning out the underbrush in fire-prone areas.

Here at Trees Atlanta, we are using goats to clean up fast-growing invasive kudzu, so we can go in and reforest the newly cleared areas, allowing us to replace overgrown spaces with beautiful new trees. Currently we have goats working in Chosewood Park and East Decatur Greenway. If you’re wondering how you can get your own goats to clean up your yard, there are rental companies around town that will let you feed their goats for a few days. In the meantime, come join us at a project in one these greenspaces to check out the goats’ work!

About Trees Atlanta

Since its beginnings, the primary goals of Trees Atlanta have been to replace trees lost to development, conserve existing trees, protect green space areas, and educate the community’s residents and workers about the many benefits of trees. These actions have resulted in Trees Atlanta becoming one of the most widely known non-profits throughout metro-Atlanta and a highly regarded community steward of our urban environment.

Founded in 1985 by Central Atlanta Progress (the downtown business leaders association), the Atlanta Commissioner of Parks, and the Junior League of Atlanta, Trees Atlanta was initially tasked with improving the tree canopy in downtown Atlanta. Despite the fact that the Atlanta metropolitan area is recognized by the National Forest Service as “the most heavily forested urban area in the country”, the Atlanta Central Business District was severely lacking in trees compared to other major cities across the country and around the world. Trees Atlanta met that challenge head-on, planting 40+ shade trees in downtown Atlanta in its first year. Since then, Trees Atlanta has expanded its focus to the entire metro area (inside I-285), and 126,000 trees later, the mission continues to evolve. Learn more →